On June 21, 2025, the U.S. bombed three facilities in Iran dedicated to nuclear enrichment, which enrichment would have allowed Iran to move in a short time to making nine nuclear bombs. This was a terrific mission that took more than 35 hours of flight time, and Iran’s three facilities deep in the mountains were decimated. Despite the success of the bombing in destroying these sites, satellite photos “showed trucks leaving Iran’s Fordow site just before U.S. airstrikes” said to be carrying enriched uranium. “Now, over 400kg of highly enriched uranium is unaccounted for. … [The] U.S. calls the strikes a success — but where is the uranium?”
Subsequently, Pres. Trump initiated Operation Epic Fury in March 2026. At that point in time, he announced that the air strikes against Iran had four purposes:
- To destroy Iran’s missile capabilities.
- To destroy Iran’s navy.
- To ensure that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.
- To ensure that the Iranian regime “cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.”
The same website that lists President Trump’s objectives for these attacks also lists statements by a variety of military leaders as well as by our secretary of War and secretary of State.
This writer was particularly gripped by the statement of purpose for our attack made by Admiral Brad Cooper: “Our military in the Middle East is undertaking an unprecedented operation to eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten Americans, as they’ve been doing for nearly half a century.”
This statement carries a broader vision of the military venture in Iran that needs to be received by the public. Admiral Cooper understands clearly that the threatening and killing of Americans that Iran has done for decades is the right and sufficient justification for our aggressive stance. He understands that Iran’s portrayal of the USA as the Great Satan to stir up the animus of the Muslim world (and particularly the Shi’ite believers within that political and religious culture) is in service to a bloodthirsty ideology of belligerence, hatred, and violent disrespect of Western mores and beliefs.
“Threaten Americans.” Think about this. The present ayatollah government wants to threaten us with suffering and death because we believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The leadership of Iran, under the acronym IRGC, hates us because we live under phrases like “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” and “all men are created equal.” They are obsessed that so many of us live claiming to be Protestant or Catholic Christians. Their envy of our economic successes drives them into a murderous rage, as even their own oil productivity and production depends upon the engineering knowledge and exploratory gifts of the West.
When this writer briefly taught high school at a private school in Iran two years before the present fanatical scoundrels took control of that country, U.S. engineers laughed discreetly at the Iranians who were on their teams who were building missile manufacturing and launching facilities for the Iranian army. At a party in my apartment at the time, an American engineer said that if there was a testing protocol in place at a missile manufacturing site and parts were not available for the test to be properly completed, the Iranians would go ahead anyway. The engineer said this would be like having three people lay a pipe. The first would dig the trench, the second would put in the pipe, and the third would fill up the trench and cover the pipe. However, he mockingly said of the Iranians that if the second man was not there to put in the pipe, Iranian three would reflexively fill in the trench without the pipe.